


i don't believe a masterpiece could ever match your face

by keyshrine



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, a CERTAIN SOMEONE is to blame for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5770303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyshrine/pseuds/keyshrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I appreciate your patience, however. It is one of your better qualities."</p><p>Cat eyes her. "Are you saying that I have <i>bad</i> qualities?"</p><p>"No," Astra responds, tone gently playful as she brushes another kiss over her jaw, "Of course not. I would not ever dream of assuming you have anything but the absolute best qualities in a human."</p><p>Cat smirks, tipping her head back as Astra's lips travel further down, down, down over her throat. "Good answer."</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't believe a masterpiece could ever match your face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alexis_Payton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexis_Payton/gifts).



> alright, so y'all know who you have to thank for this...here you go! i hope i didn't disappoint. i never knew how much fun it would be to write this pairing until i actually did it. it took some rewriting and correcting of multiple mistakes but i've finally got an end product!
> 
> now hand over the monopoly money B)

“Twins are— _were_ rare on Krypton,” Astra murmurs, stares at the ceiling. Sprawled out underneath Cat's pale sheets, she looks positively alien indeed; a thing from another planet, mysterious and beautiful, an expanse of sunlit skin and dark bi-colored hair stretched out on a clean ivory bed. Elegance and intimidating stature follow her like second and third shadows, normally, but here she is—almost normal, dare Cat say it, like she's been turned from Kryptonian to human in the blink of an eye, with no eye-lasers or super strength or the ability to fly, with nothing at all but a sort of strange, soft gentleness about her, something rare and untouchable. Like glass. Like particularly fragile glass that'll break apart to reveal her hard-as-steel self beneath it if Cat so much as tries to reach out and touch her.

(But she reaches out and touches her, again and again and again, and the softness never breaks away.)

"Oh?" Cat hums softly in the back of her throat, leans up on an elbow to look down at Astra. Perhaps the other woman thinks her interest is faked, because her head turns slowly and her gaze connects with Cat's, searching for one long moment that makes Cat think it'll end in Astra deciding to keep her silence.

"My sister and I enjoyed fooling people. We would...play, we would act as each other. We were always so convincing—even our parents were fooled, more often than not. We were absolutely the same. In appearance. We were...different, in personality. Somewhat. I suppose that only became clearer as we grew older." Something in Astra's voice is sad, in a quiet sort of way and thus all the sadder. "As we grew older we grew more separate but at the same time no less...together—do you understand?"

Cat thinks she does, if only slightly, so she nods. (She would nod anyway, even if she didn't understand a single word coming from Astra's mouth.)

Astra closes her eyes, and she looks peaceful. And sad. She always looks sad, only if even the slightest bit, only if even at the very edges of her, whereas everything else centers on the fact that she is intimidating and powerful and fearless and beautiful, there is a sadness there too, at the corners, radiating a little inwards rather than outwards. But—peaceful, all the same. A rare tranquility. Cat curls close and not too close; it's the way Astra likes it. Close, but a sliver of distance, the tiniest bit of space at all times. And no clinging: no attempts at keeping her put, at making her stay. Cat's perfectly fine with it, really—she's grown so used to it that she couldn't possibly not be.

And Astra always _returns,_ after all, so she has no reason to worry even if she wakes up in the middle of the night, alone in bed with no one there alongside her. By the time she falls asleep and wakes up again in the morning, Astra has returned.

They don't talk about it. They don't need to. Astra goes where Astra likes to go and there is no stopping that. Cat wouldn't even try.

And she's not one for clinging, anyway.

(It helps, she thinks, that she _trusts_ Astra to return on her own, in her own time.)

"Kara sees Alura, when she looks at me," Astra says, curls a hand loosely through Cat's hair, fingertips grazing lightly across her scalp. " _I_ see Alura when I look at me. The...ah, 'tacky white streak' you despise so much is the only thing that separates me from my sister—" Astra tenses and then relaxes in quick succession. "Or...it _was._ ”

"...Ah. So. All of those times I tried to get you to remove it—"

Astra nods—Cat only knows it because she feels her move, slightly, the Kryptonian's chin brushing against the top of her own head. She cranes her head upwards to watch Astra's face. She looks calm, still; relaxed, even talking about this. Cat smirks inwardly, filled with a sort of self-satisfaction that comes only at knowing that Astra tells her this and would tell no one else but Kara. Not ever. It is Cat who has gained her trust through trial and error, it is Cat who gets to keep her here, gets to keep this glorious otherworldly thing in her bed, face lit by the beams of sunlight that shine in through the curtains weakly, highlighting dust motes in the air and highlighting Astra in particular, as though it reaches for her specifically. "I will keep it," Astra says, firmly. Not a question. Not an 'I _think_ I will keep it'.

"Fine," Cat sighs, draws out the word in a terribly exasperated and put-upon way, "But when others point out how absurdly gaudy it is, don't come crying to me."

Astra cocks a brow, lips twitching. "I do not think that will be a problem," she murmurs smoothly, and then rolls over and is suddenly atop Cat, head dipping to brush a gentle kiss over her forehead. "I appreciate your patience, however. It is one of your better qualities."

Cat eyes her. "Are you saying that I have _bad_ qualities?"

"No," Astra responds, tone gently playful as she brushes another kiss over her jaw, "Of course not. I would not ever dream of assuming you have anything but the absolute best qualities in a human."

Cat smirks, tipping her head back as Astra's lips travel further down, down, down over her throat. "Good answer."

—

"You are lovely," Astra whispers afterwards, as though afraid to break the silence too loudly. Cat understands the feeling. It feels almost sacred. It would be like shattering glass; loud, sudden, unwelcome. A ridiculous feeling, but one she manages to share with Astra nevertheless.

Cat tilts her head slightly, meeting Astra's eyes. Rarely are the compliments that Astra chooses to shower upon her so quiet and gentle. Rather, the compliments she offers are offhanded, usually, along the lines of _you look excellent in blue_ or _your hair is like gold in the sunlight._ Astra can be surprisingly poetic in a way that isn't stupidly overdone. She manages to make such comments like _you are beautiful, and all the wonders of any world pale in comparison_ seem actually— _nonchalant._

Simple.

Which, to be fair, is a skill that Cat wholly appreciates.

Not to mention that Astra is always endearingly eager to give them out—Cat lets her, naturally. Compliments don't matter unless they're very convincing or very genuine, and Astra's are always both. People appeal to her sense of vanity every single day; multiple people, from James Olsen to whoever she's in a meeting with that afternoon, but it's _protocol._ Habit. Attempts at softening her. She's used to it. They don't affect her whatsoever.

Astra, on the other hand...

Well. She's a different story altogether, and so are her words. But it's always been that way from the very start.

(Or, maybe not _quite_ the very start, but close enough.)

"Well," Cat drawls, to lighten the strange silence that had befallen them, "Aren't you going to continue?"

Astra laughs, soft and light, and sits up. The sheets pool around her waist, and Cat's gaze idly roams over the scars littered there on revealed skin; they are few but all stand out starkly, raised and not quite pale enough to blend in against her flesh. She reaches out, trails a fingertip along the length of one. Astra shivers, looks down at her. "You are not at all like Non," she says, suddenly, in a way that makes Cat uncertain if it is a compliment or some sort of underhanded insult. Cat pauses, stroking a thumb lightly over the raised curve that is a rib as Astra shifts and turns under her touch.

"Is that a _good_ thing?" Cat inquires, arches a brow. She's only heard tell of the dead Non in brief tidbits throughout their conversations. That was one thing that she hadn't pried about. Dead husbands were not her favorite topic during dinner, though whenever Astra did speak of it it was more like she was speaking of a friend instead of a lover, instead of a husband.

Astra nods, though, catches Cat's hand on its way back down her side and holds it in her own, and thus they are connected. She lifts it, after a moment, presses a kiss to the back of her hand, eyes intent and fixated on Cat's face. "It is. He was...as I was. Before."

"An angry super-eco-terrorist," Cat supplies helpfully.

Astra flinches. "Do not—"

Cat kisses her in apology; it is the only thing she _can_ do, really. She isn't going to verbally apologize for stating facts.

"I love you," Astra says after she's pulled away, and somewhat slowly like she's savoring the admission for herself. Cat stares. Astra stares back, and frowns. "Was I not supposed to say that?" Her eyes flutter in a brief roll, "You humans and your inability to speak the truth. They are words, nothing more. Do not have a panic attack over it." Concern replaces the exasperation, and her gaze searches Cat's face, "You are not... _going_ to, are you? If so, please give me a warning—"

" _Ugh._ Shut _up,_ " Cat says, and kisses her again.

A surprised noise escapes Astra, and is muffled against Cat's mouth; Astra _gets_ it, eventually, however, and kisses back, hands roaming over Cat, never greedy and grabbing. Just _feeling,_ instead.

On the bedside table, a phone vibrates.

For the first time in a month, Cat Grant ignores a call.

**Author's Note:**

> imagine how the revealing of their relationship went..."so, kiera, i'm sleeping with your aunt. okay, nice talk, go get me a latte AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T FAINT ON THE WAY OUT"


End file.
